The Great Siege of Malta (Maltese: L-Assedju l-Kbir) occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months, from 18 May to 8 September 1565.
The Knights Hospitaller had been headquartered in Malta since 1530, after being driven out of Rhodes, also by the Ottomans, in 1522, following the siege of Rhodes. The Ottomans first attempted to take Malta in 1551 but failed. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, made a second attempt to take Malta. The Knights, who numbered around 500 together with approximately 6,000 footsoldiers, withstood the siege and repelled the invaders.
This victory became one of the most celebrated events of sixteenth-century Europe, to the point that Voltaire said in 1753: Rien n’est plus connu que ce siége, où la fortune de Soliman échoua ("Nothing is more known than this siege, where the fortune of Suleiman failed)." It undoubtedly contributed to the eventual erosion of the European perception of Ottoman invincibility, although the Mediterranean continued to be contested between Christian coalitions and the Muslim Turks for many years.
Knights of Malta
By the end of 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, had forcibly ejected the Knights from their base on Rhodes after the six-month siege of Rhodes. Between 1523 to 1530, the Order lacked a permanent home. They became known as the Knights of Malta when, on 26 October 1530, Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Grand Master of the Knights, sailed into the Grand Harbour with a number of his followers to lay claim to Malta and Gozo, which had been granted to them by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in return for one falcon sent annually to the Viceroy of Sicily and a solemn Mass to be celebrated on All Saints Day. Charles also required the Knights to garrison Tripoli, Libya, which was under the control of the Barbary corsairs, allies of the Ottomans. The Knights accepted the offer reluctantly. Malta was a small, desolate island, and for some time, many of the Knights clung to the dream of recapturing Rhodes.
Nevertheless, the Order soon turned Malta into a naval base. The island's position in the centre of the Mediterranean made it a strategically crucial gateway between East and West, especially as the Barbary corsairs increased their forays into the western Mediterranean throughout the 1540s and 1550s.
In particular, the corsair Dragut posed a major threat to the Christian nations of the central Mediterranean. Dragut and the Knights were continually at loggerheads. In 1551, Dragut and the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha decided to take Malta, and invaded the island with a force of about 10,000 men. After only a few days, however, Dragut broke off the siege and moved to the neighbouring island of Gozo, where he bombarded the Cittadella for several days. The Governor of Gozo, the Knight Galatian de Sesse, surrendered and the corsairs sacked the town and took virtually the entire population of Gozo (approximately 5,000 people) into captivity. Dragut and Sinan then sailed south to Tripoli, where they soon seized the Knights' garrison there. They initially installed a local leader, Murad Agha, as governor, but Dragut subsequently took control of the area.
Expecting another Ottoman invasion within a year, the new Grand Master, Juan de Homedes, ordered the strengthening of Fort St. Angelo at the tip of Birgu, as well as the construction of two new forts, Fort Saint Michael on the Senglea promontory and Fort Saint Elmo at the seaward end of Mount Sciberras (now Valletta). The two new forts were built in the remarkably short period of six months in 1552. All three forts proved crucial during the Great Siege.
The next several years were relatively calm, although the guerre de course (commerce raiding) between Muslims and Christians continued unabated. In 1557, the Knights elected Jean Parisot de Valette Grand Master of the Order. He continued his raids on non-Christian shipping, and his private vessels are known to have taken some 3,000 Muslim and Jewish slaves during his tenure as Grand Master.
By 1559, Dragut was causing the Christian powers such distress, even raiding the coasts of Spain, that Philip II organized the largest naval expedition in fifty years to evict the corsair from Tripoli. The Knights joined the expedition, which consisted of about 54 galleys and 14,000 men. This ill-fated campaign climaxed in the Battle of Djerba in May 1560, when Ottoman admiral Piyale Pasha surprised the Christian fleet off the Tunisian island of Djerba, capturing or sinking about half the Christian ships. The battle was a disaster for the Christians, and it marked the high point of Ottoman domination of the Mediterranean.
Towards the siege
After Djerba there could be little doubt that the Turks would eventually attack Malta again. Malta was of immense strategic importance to the Ottoman long-term plan to conquer more of Europe, since Malta was a stepping stone to Sicily, and Sicily in turn could be a base for an invasion of the Kingdom of Naples. In August 1560, Jean de Valette sent a despatch to all the Order's priories ordering that their knights prepare to return to Malta as soon as a citazione (summons) was issued. After Djerba, the Turks made a strategic error in not attacking Malta at once, while the Spanish fleet lay in ruins, as the five-year delay allowed Spain to rebuild its forces.
Meanwhile, the Knights continued to prey on Turkish shipping. In mid-1564, Romegas, the Order's most notorious seafarer, captured several large merchantmen, including one that belonged to the Chief Eunuch of the seraglio, and took numerous high-ranking prisoners, including the governor of Cairo, the governor of Alexandria, and the former nurse of Sultan Suleiman's daughter. Romegas' exploits gave the Turks a casus belli, and by the end of 1564, Suleiman had resolved to wipe the Knights of Malta off the face of the earth.
By early 1565, Grand Master de Valette's network of spies in Constantinople had informed him that the invasion was imminent. De Valette set about raising troops in Italy, laying in stores and finishing work on Fort Saint Angelo, Fort Saint Michael, and Fort Saint Elmo.
Tactics and weaponry
All known techniques of siege warfare were employed during the siege of Malta. Turkish forces had a huge siege tower with a drawbridge from which sharpshooters fired over the walls of Fort St. Angelo. The tower was constructed to be resistant to fire with leather sheets kept moist from water tanks contained inside the tower. Despite this, Maltese masons had hidden artillery within the walls, leaving the outer masonry in place to conceal it from view. Concealed from sight, the defenders were able to move the cannon into position, loaded with chain shot, without revealing its location to the Turks, who had already taken positions in the tower when it was destroyed.
Armies
The Turkish armada, which set sail from Constantinople on 22 March, was by all accounts one of the largest assembled since antiquity. According to one of the earliest and most complete histories of the siege, that of the Order's official historian Giacomo Bosio, the fleet consisted of 193 vessels, which included 131 galleys, seven galliots (small galleys), and four galleasses (large galleys), the remainder being transport vessels. Contemporary letters from García Álvarez de Toledo y Osorio of Sicily give similar numbers."
The Italian mercenary Francisco Balbi di Correggio (serving as an arquebusier in the Spanish corps), gave the forces as:
The Knight Hipolito Sans, in a lesser-known account, also lists about 48,000 invaders, although it is not clear how independent his work is from Balbi's. Other contemporary authors give much lower figures. In a letter written to Philip II only four days after the siege began, de Valette himself says that "the number of soldiers that will make land is between 15,000 and 16,000, including seven thousand arquebusier or more, that is four thousand janissaries and three thousand sipahis." On the other hand, in a letter to the Prior of Germany a month after the siege, de Valette writes, "This fleet consisted of two hundred and fifty ships, triremes, biremes and other vessels; the nearest estimate we could make of the enemy's force was 40,000 fighting men."
Indeed, a letter written during the siege by the liaison with Sicily, Captain Vincenzo Anastagi, states the enemy force was only 22,000 and several other letters of the time give similar numbers. However, Bosio arrives at a total of about 30,000, which is consistent with Balbi's "named troops." Richard Knolles' history gives essentially the same figure.
Siege
Arrival of the Ottomans
Before the Turks arrived, de Valette ordered the harvesting of all the crops, including unripened grain, to deprive the enemy of any local food supplies. Furthermore, the Knights poisoned all wells with bitter herbs and dead animals.
The Turkish armada arrived at dawn on Friday, 18 May, but did not at once make land. The first fighting broke out on 19 May. A day later, the Ottoman fleet sailed up the southern coast of the island, turned around and finally anchored at Marsaxlokk (Marsa Sirocco) Bay, nearly 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the Grand Harbour region. According to most accounts, in particular Balbi's, a dispute arose between the leader of the land forces, the 4th Vizier serdar Kızıl Ahmedli Mustafa Pasha, and the supreme naval commander, Piyale Pasha, about where to anchor the fleet. Piyale wished to shelter it at Marsamxett Harbour, just north of the Grand Harbour, in order to avoid the sirocco and be nearer the action, but Mustafa disagreed, because to anchor the fleet there would require first reducing Fort St. Elmo, which guarded the entrance to the harbour. Mustafa intended, according to these accounts, to attack the poorly defended former capital Mdina, which stood in the centre of the island, then attack Forts St. Angelo and Michael by land. If so, an attack on Fort St. Elmo would have been entirely unnecessary. Nevertheless, Mustafa relented, apparently believing only a few days would be necessary to destroy St. Elmo. After the Turks were able to emplace their guns, at the end of May they commenced a bombardment.
It certainly seems true that Suleiman had seriously blundered in splitting the command three ways. He not only split command between Piyale and Mustafa, but he ordered both of them to defer to Dragut when he arrived from Tripoli. Contemporary letters from spies in Constantinople, however, suggest that the plan had always been to take Fort St. Elmo first. In any case, this decision proved to be a critical mistake for the Turks.
While the Ottomans were landing, the knights and Maltese made some last-minute improvements to the defences of Birgu and Senglea. The Ottomans set up their main camp in Marsa, which was close to the Knights' fortifications. In the following days, the Ottomans set up camps and batteries on Santa Margherita Hill and the Sciberras Peninsula. The attacks on Birgu began on 21 May, while Senglea was first attacked a day later.
Capture of Fort St. Elmo
The darkness of the night then became as bright as day, due to the vast quantity of artificial fires. So bright was it indeed that we could see St Elmo quite clearly. The gunners of St Angelo... were able to lay and train their pieces upon the advancing Turks, who were picked out in the light of the fires.
— Francisco Balbi, Spanish soldier
In the initial weeks of the siege, prior to the arrival of the small relief sent by Viceroy of Sicilia Garcia de Toledo, two companies of veteran soldiers from the Tercio of Sicily faced the Ottoman forces, led by three Spanish captains. These companies were dispatched from Sicily to Malta in the spring, anticipating the imminent Ottoman attack reported by spies. The companies included those of Captains Andrés Miranda and Juan de la Cerda. However, Captain Miranda was not present at the siege's outset, as he remained in Sicily, serving as a courier and military adviser for García de Toledo. His company was temporarily commanded by his second lieutenant, Gonzalo de Medrano.
Both companies played a crucial role in the early skirmishes against the Turks at the gates of Birgu. During one such engagement, Ensign Gonzalo de Medrano notably distinguished himself in front of his arquebusiers, gaining the attention of Grand Master La Valette. When the Ottomans targeted Fort Saint Elmo to secure their fleet in Marsamxett harbour, the Grand Master's first action was to send the two Spanish companies to Saint Elmo. Utilizing his authority as Captain General of the Island of Malta, granted by the King of Spain, he promoted Gonzalo de Medrano to captain and assigned him to lead Captain Miranda's company.
At Saint Elmo, approximately 500 Spanish soldiers from the two companies of the Tercio Viejo de Sicilia were besieged, alongside their captains Juan de la Cerda and Gonzalo de Medrano, as well as around 100 knights and staff members, including Andrés de Miranda.